John J. Miller Insurance and Financial Services, Inc.

While your concern is noted, unfortunately you do not understand the dynamics of a seasonal business and cash flow. Cash flow during the off season is not as steady as cash flow during the peak season. A payment will be out shortly.SincerelyApple Valley Nursery

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response. If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ***, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. Thank-you for sending their responseIt’s a shame it had to take them months, us having to file a complaint with Revdex.com, time and cost associated with writing and sending them a registered letter and seeking legal advice to get our $5,back! Very disappointed with them! I will let you know if we do get our check in the mailThank-you Stacy for helping usWe really appreciate it
Regards,
*** ***

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ***, and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.Regardless of the "not asking for refund in December" The "customer" is not satisfied and I was trying to obtain info on what was planted and not planted so I could figure out what was missing then go from there.This is not going to get resolved here obviously I will have the photos, texts and emails for proof Apple Valley obviously feels they are not in the wrong
Regards,
Michelle *** ***

I received your voicemail from last week. A customer who was on a payment plan surprised us and is able to pay their balance in full way ahead of time. If you would like to forward to Granke's that I will have a refund check in the mail to them on the day of Saturday November 7th, that would be great! Then this issue can be resolved and we can be back in good standing.Thanks!***

Apple Valley Nursery & Orchards was hired to do a landscaping project for Michelle *** ***. Project was paid for in October. Project was planned to be done in October, however, project was delayed due to weather conditions which had delayed projects that were
scheduled prior to Michelle *** ***'s project. Project was completed in mid November. Michelle *** *** added on several project additions / overages. There were a couple plants that were unavailable and were scheduled to be planted at a later date, however, the project additions / overages totaled roughly a little over what the cost of the unplanted plants were. Michelle *** *** was sent a text message on December 13, stating that "it would be easier to call it a wash and start with a clean slate for next spring with the plants and after looking at the area over winter you (Michelle *** ***) might decide you only want a couple plants in one spot and maybe add some in another spot, this way we could bill out accordingly next spring for what plants you would want." Michelle *** *** sent a text message on December 24, and NEVER stated that she did NOT want to do the additions / overages as a wash, therefore, leaving us to assume that she wanted to go that route and consider everything a wash and start with a clean slate in spring. Michelle *** *** asked about warranty on pavers, plant care sheet and she said that she had a tree die because it kept getting snow plowed on it. Snow or snow plow damage is not something that is covered under any warrantyMichelle *** *** had emailed on April 17, stating that she wanted us to see how the brick look. The soonest that we had someone in the area to look at the brick pavers was in May, which our crew fixed on the same day they looked at them which was in late May 2017. The reason that the pavers had moved was that either herself, her neighbor or snowplow driver had driven over them with a truck or some-type of vehicle while snowplowing. The paver landing that was installed was meant only to be for foot traffic not vehicle traffic. If there was going to be vehicle traffic over this area, this should have been brought to our attention so that the a driveway base could have been installed. This is not covered under warranty and should be charged a service call to fix (upwards of $250+), but we decided to waive the billing of this service call. As for the emails and texts, we do not have an in office secretary, so immediate responses do not always happen, especially if we are in the busy season and have been delayed due to weather extremes. Michelle *** *** had also wanted to move forward with the next phase of her project this spring, however, due to delays from rain events occurring from late May to present, we have not contact Michelle *** *** in regards to her next phase because we were currently not taking on any planting jobs of that nature until we were caught up with our current delayed projects

This is in response to complaint ID ***. In regards to the December 24, text, Michelle *** *** should have stated in her text that she did not want to do that agreement (call it a wash of unavailable plants for project additions / overages). There was NO mention that she did NOT agree with the swap. A mention of disagreement should have been made at that time in December 2016, instead of waiting until April 17, to email regarding the plantingsAlso Michelle *** ***'s claim in her previous Revdex.com correspondence claims that she "wanted to be present when they came to view the property." This claim was never made by her before or after the email response from Apple Valley Nursery on April 20, to Michelle *** *** stating "will swing and take a look at that as soon as we can." Also, when Apple Valley Nursery mentioned "tire tracks" you are probably thinking black tread marks, however, that is not the case, the meaning was that there were indents in the soil and pavers which can be seen when a vehicle drives over an area causing pressure on different areas of the soil or pavers causing them to shift or be displaced. In regards to the downspout, Michelle *** *** did not like where Apple Valley Nursery had situated / proposed the exit point of the buried downspout area, she wanted it extended farther out, so Apple Valley Nursery staff had to get additional drainage supplies and add them onto the installed buried downspout area and extend it out to the general area that Michelle *** *** had instructed because she was extremely concerned about water buildup by her house due to her neighbor's construction of a concrete pad area for his RV, which was causing excessive amounts of water to flow towards her home. Had Michelle *** *** stated in December 2016 that she did not want to do that arrangement of a wash, Apple Valley Nursery would have billed her out accordingly for the project additions / overages in that fiscal year ending in and had the unavailable plantings from put on the schedule to be planted in 2017. However, by Michelle *** *** not disagreeing with the swap, Apple Valley Nursery closed the books for that fiscal year in December 2016. In the December 13, text to Michelle *** ***, she was to access the new landscape area over winter and see what areas she would like to add plants whether it was one or two in one spot or a couple in another spot. Michelle *** *** had emailed on April 14, stating that she was looking to meet for the next project. There will be no refund issued due to the fact that Michelle *** *** did NOT disagree with the proposed agreement regarding the swapping of unavailable plants for project additions / overages

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
Apple Valley still has not given a satisfactory response.  Just saying they will do random monthly payments does not solve the situation.  I understand they receive payments from clients at random times during the month, but their cash flow can't be that tight that they can't make a normal monthly payment to us.  If we would have seen a payment or 2 by now we would believe that they are sincere about making payments.  So far all we have seen in very short responses to our complaints thru the Revdex.com.  These short responses give us no idea when we will see any of our down payment returned to us.We need some dates and we need to receive at least a first payment so we know they are really going to return our money.  Right now I have my doubts since we have been at this for almost a full 5 months now.ThanksDale
Regards,
Dale And Kelly [redacted]

Customer is correct in stating the status of the partial down payment timeframe and the delays with the project, however, customer had not made the required down payment percentage for their project.  Also customer had made changes to the project (project additions) which we were told to...

go ahead and add and lets get the project started, however, again the required percentage for down payment was not met.  After customer reviewed the project additions price increase again, the customer had decided to hold off with the project for this year. Due to the unusual rainy weather that we had experienced this season, our projects were taking longer to complete with all of the delays.  Due to needing all available staff on hand, there is delays in voice message responses and emails, due to no staff is in the office.  These extended delays with projects, in turn, have caused a delay with customer's refund of their project.  The refund has been submitted and is just awaiting payment release.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
Apple Valley in February received our money to do a project in the early spring around jobs new construction on a hill. They were to wait until our excavator smoothed out and filled low spots before they would do the work in April. They wanted a weeks notice so they could come out and advise our excavator on what should be done to prepare the site for pavers for the shower, patio and walkway from the drive to the porch. Due to the wet spring everyone got pushed back including Appel Valley. When we got a date we shared  that with a weeks notice for Apple Valley and they were unable to comply by coming out due to rain delays and work backing up for them. They asked the excavator to change his date to another but he was unable due to his work conflicts building up.[redacted] sent recommendations as to what he needed to have done so his work could be done easier. I read [redacted]'s email to the excavator and he did what he could with the instructions that were given to him. They were notified of the completion and we asked to get a date set for them to come out and start doing the job. With long delays between communications and excuses why we were not immediately put on the work list. They told us that there were jobs from last fall that had to come first. Just because we prepaid money did not mean we were to come first in getting our job completed. They had to go with first come first serve. When we were not home they came to the job site unannounced and talked with our neighbor about how dangerous it was for his workers. By July we were still waiting to get someone out here to explain what needed to be done for them to do the work around the house. We offered to meet there but preferred to have them come here to explain what needed to prepare the site better. We wanted the job to be done by the end of July.Having not heard from them through texts and emails I requested to have them send our money back in August with in 5 business days. They finally answered but it would take them 6-8 weeks to send us our money. I responded back to them that I would give them 4 weeks but would need the money for another construction project starting and please pays us by September 12, 2015. No response from them. That is why we contacted the Revdex.com.
Regards,
[redacted]

The customer built a new home late last year, which required finished grading to be done early this spring by their excavator.  We were ready to do their landscaping late March / early April, however, they were not ready for us because their excavator had not been there yet.  They were to...

notify us when the excavator was going to be there.  They notified us on May 13, 2015 via email that their excavator would be there next week - no day or time was given.  The next we heard from them was a phone message on May 26, 2015 that their excavator would be there on Tuesday June 2, 2015 and we could come up and meet with him.  It is over an hour drive for our company one way to their place.  We informed them that the date the excavator was going to be there would not work with us due to our schedule already being booked solidly thru June 17th at that point (since April-June are our busiest months of the season and our days are generally booked solidly from 6am-9pm seven days a week) and we would not be able to break away that long from the current job we were on to meet with the excavator that day.  We mentioned, however, we could break away on Thursday June 4, 2015 to meet briefly with him as we were scheduled to be at a job site near their area that morning anyway.  They said that would not work for the excavator and he would just go ahead and excavate without meetingwith us.  We then received an email from the customer late on Tuesday June 2, 2015  telling us that the excavation would be completed tomorrow (Wednesday) and asked if we were still planning on coming up there Thursday am (to do their job).  We had never stated that we were going to START their job that Thursday, only that we would have been able to meet with the excavator that day rather than Tuesday the 2nd.We are generally booked up several months in advance and the customer expected us to drop all of the other customers who were booked since they were not ready when they were supposed to be.  They wanted us to drop everyone else on a days notice to do their job now because they were ready now.  We were able to do some adjustments with our construction schedule and were planning on starting their job on June 22nd / 23rd unless the rain delayed us. The customer relayed some disappointment, thinking they should have been higher up on "the docket" (as they worded it) since they pre-paid.  They had been scheduled for earlier in spring and they were not ready, which is no fault of ours.  Pre-paying for a job in advance does not mean that you can push other scheduled jobs aside when you are finally ready to have your job done.  What the pre-pay promo offered was a huge discount on the project from the overall price.  It did not provide any special precedence over other jobs that had been booked before them and due to the fact that the site was not ready when we were available to install their job, we had to fit them in the schedule where we could.   We did a site inspection on Friday, June 12, 2015 and were appalled at what the excavator had done.  Their excavator had changed the entire scope of the proposed project area which we had bid, in fact, it was altered so much that the job site required a whole redesign because of how unsafe the job site had become after the excavation.  First there was the issue oftheir excavator altering a side path (that did not need to be altered).  He excavated away the support side wall that was holding the path up from a shear drop off down to a lake.  With this side wall missing there was no support for the pathway, it might hold light duty equipment like a mower or possibly a gator, but would not support the weight of a heavy tractor or skid steer, especially if it was hauling product.  It was only a matter of a few times driving up and down on this unsupported pathway before it gave out, becoming extremely unsafe and someone would get severely hurt rolling down the steep embankment.  Secondly their excavator, for some reason or another (which we cannot figure out), created an incredibly steep slope immediately in front of the proposed new patio area severely close to where there were existing sonotubes for their pre-existing raised wooden deck posts.  With this steep slope a patio could not be installed underneath this raised wooden deck because there would be no support on the slope side without putting in an extensive block retaining wall or concrete wall there to hold up and support soil and base for the patio and existing sonotube area.  Previously there had been a gentle slope of settled soil which did not need to be disturbed.  This section on the slope side of the patio did not need to be excavated at all.  Again, we are not sure why this was done.  Our recommendation for this newly excavated site was to let the soil settle again over summer and do the project next spring because whatever was put in place there now, whether a wall, patio etc the soil was going to settle and cause shifting / settling issues.  If that happens then the support for the new patio and existing wood deck sonotubes would be in jeopardy.  The customer was supposed to get back to us with what they wanted to do.  They did not specify what they wanted to do, whether the excavator would fix it, they would let it settle and them do a wall etc. We had informed them that we could do their front pathway yet since that area was not disturbed.  Again, there was no indication on what they wanted to do.  They requested via email August 14, 2015 that they wanted a refund, which we stated that we would refund and gave them the timeframe of when to expect their refund.  Our refund policy for cancelled projects has remained constant and unchanged since the year we began landscape construction projects. This policy is generally standard throughout the landscape construction industry.